PMDC cancels licences of 27 negligent doctors

Council’s chief says cases of two medico-legal officers forwarded to courts

ISLAMABAD: The top regulator of doctors and medical education in the country on Thursday said that it had cancelled the licences of as many as 27 doctors for negligence while licences of two medico-legal officers have been suspended for making false reports and their cases have been sent to the criminal courts.

This was disclosed by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council Dr Tariq Bhutta while talking about the two-month performance of the newly constituted council.

Dr Bhutta said that the council has received a large number of complaints against doctors, adding that complaints from Punjab will be reviewed after Eidul Fitr.

The PMDC chief added that licences of some 27 doctors were suspended for negligence. Licences of two MLOs were also suspended for deliberately preparing fake reports. Their cases have been sent to the relevant criminal courts so that they could be punished, he said.

Dr Bhutta said that after being formed in March this year, the new council had completed preparations for converting the manual record system to a digital format.

Moreover, the council had on March 13 created admission boards as part of the new central admissions policy for medical and dental colleges in the country. A medical board has also been formed to oversee the process of admissions in medical colleges and to avert delays.

Dr Bhutta said that the new body of PMDC had disposed of some 31,478 of 34,702 pending applications for temporary licences while he had ordered to resolve the remaining cases within a fortnight. The council had further disposed of 1,401 cases out of a total of 1,648 post-graduate cases.

A deadline of June 30 has been set for licence verification and other licences.

He further said that instead of following the old system where doctors were simply required to renew their licence after a fixed term, they have decided to formulate a policy as per international best practices.

The council had further resolved not to punish students for either failing courses or violating rules of colleges.

Asked about measures taken to improve the administrative performance of the council, Bhutta said that for this purpose they are looking to hire a permanent registrar and a finance director.

For this, they had already advertised the positions and had shortlisted candidates.

For audits, he said that the council currently lacks a system for internal audits. The new PMDC body has decided to hire internal as well as external auditors on a priority basis.

Further, he said the council had created as many as 13 committees to review various issues and to improve transparency.

Moreover, he said that for the first time, they had devised a system whereby minutes of the council’s board meeting are uploaded onto their website within 48 hours of the meeting.

The council has also started inspections of medical and dental colleges. Further, for the first time, has started ranking medical education institutions from grades A to D on the basis of their performance and faculty. Those who rank at the top or perform the best will be given special grants and awards. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2019.